Who is the PDT lawyer who filed the lawsuit against Bolsonaro – 06/22/2023 – Politics

A person from Paraíba outside the Rio-São Paulo advocacy axis is behind the judgment that could remove Jair Bolsonaro (PL) from the next elections.

The TSE (Tribunal Superior Eleitoral) is starting to analyze this Thursday (22) a lawsuit filed by the PDT that asks for the declaration of ineligibility of the former president on charges of abuse of political power and misuse of the media at the meeting with ambassadors in which he made attacks on the electoral system, broadcast by TV Brasil.

The lawyer in charge of the case is Walber de Moura Agra, 50. He took a while to enter his career, considering his own parameters, but he could make history with the process.

Agra says that he started to work as a lawyer at the age of 35, after a period dedicated to an academic career and to the Attorney General of the State of Pernambuco —and, later, as an advisor to the then Minister of the STF (Federal Supreme Court) Ricardo Lewandowski.

Born in Campina Grande (PB), Agra went to Recife to do his master’s degree. He held a doctorate in Florence, Italy, and a postdoctoral degree in Bordeaux, France.

It was on the recommendation of a former student of his at the Catholic University of Pernambuco that he approached the PDT. The former pupil was the current deputy Túlio Gadêlha, today on the Network.

Agra says that he advocated for free for some for the PDT, due to ideological affinity —he defines himself as a “national developmentalist”. Until a consensus was reached on the need for a more integral dedication, and he became the legal coordinator of the legend.

The action that will be judged this Thursday by the TSE is only 1 among 16 in the court that aim at the ineligibility of the former president.

But it was the one that walked the fastest due to some of its characteristics: having a single episode as a focus, having the presentation broadcast on TV Brasil as the main test, delivered on a pen drive, and the fact that the PDT did not demand more production of tests , which could have required, for example, expertise, breaches of secrecy and presentation of documents by authorities.

A “millimetrically calculated” strategy, according to Agra. “In electoral law, either you have a political feeling or you dance”, she says.

To this plan, he added a gamble that could have been risky: the request for inclusion in the records of the coup plot found in the house of Bolsonaro’s former Minister of Justice, Anderson Torres. The text provided for the establishment of a state of defense in the TSE to reverse the result of the 2022 presidential election.

Agra says that he was on a tourist trip through Germany when he heard about the draft, revealed by Sheet. He interrupted his walk to ask for the document to be included. “It was a mess with the girlfriend,” she jokes.

The inclusion, incidentally, should motivate a request for annulment of the process by Bolsonaro’s lawyers on the allegation of curtailing the defense. The argument is that the addition expanded the scope of the action and would no longer be possible at the stage the process was at, with the testimonial phase already started.

It will not be a reason for bitterness with Tarcísio Vieira, the ex-president’s lawyer. “We are friends”, guarantees Agra. So much so that, he reports, between the first and second rounds, the two were together at the Country Club in Recife to celebrate their work so far in the electoral marathon, each with their own clients.

The PDT lawyer claims that the coup draft is fully connected with the meeting of ambassadors and helps to prove the assumptions of the action, an argument accepted by the rapporteur Benedito Gonçalves.

Although he has already worked in six states and has an office unit in the federal capital, Agra says that the part of his career he is most proud of is the academic one. He is a professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco and professor at USP. He has over 15 books published and has organized over 20.

In the legal environment, his office is considered prestigious, although not as much as those led by former ministers of higher courts. Some consider that, with his performance, he gave the PDT a greater role in the Electoral Justice than the size of the party in current politics.

In temperament, Agra can be tough, or, as he prefers to say, “someone who tries to hide the tenderness in his heart”.

“You can put it there: I am a hard-working Northeastern migrant,” says he, the son of a prosecutor and a dentist, both of whom are also teachers.

Two days before his historic performance in court, he still didn’t know what to wear and promised a technical speech. He had said that he would close the oral argument with Chico Buarque, but at the last minute he decided to cut the verse to fit more citation of legal doctrine.

All in line with what he says is his role in a case that could change the course of the political dispute in the country. “The line of duty is never something extraordinary,” he says.